Prof Peter Pormann - research

Research interests

Peter E Pormann is primarily concerned with the transmission of the Greek medical and scientific heritage into the Islamic world. He has published on medicine and philosophy in Late Antique Alexandria, Greek-Syriac -Arabic translation technique, the history of mental illness and hospital provisions in tenth-century Baghdad, and medieval Islamic medicine more generally.

At Manchester, he is currently pursuing a major research project entitled ‘Arabic Commentaries on the Hippocratic Aphorisms’, funded by the ERC (€1.5m).

He also has an interest in Hebrew studies and Jewish life in England during the High Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and is currently preparing his catalogue of the Hebrew manuscripts of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, for the press (to be published by Boydell & Brewer).

Finally, he works on the reception of Classical literature and culture in the modern Arab world, and serves as one of the four executive editors for the International Journal of the Classical Tradition.